We’re going to put it out there. A great marketing manager
is like the conductor of an orchestra. You don’t necessarily play an instrument
now yourself, but you’re darned good at overseeing a symphony. You guys have
worked at the coal face, yet you also understand strategy… and all those things
make you one very valuable piece of kit.

Of course, the flip side to that is that you’re also one
very expensive resource to be actually writing and implementing email campaigns,
for example, when you could instead be driving policy to support the business’s
objectives. So what gives?

Accepting the baton

It can be hard to let go of the day-to-day stuff.
Entrepreneurs, business owners, and marketing managers often struggle to do so.
It can feel as though other people either simply don’t understand the nuances
of the company messaging or don’t have the passion to get things just right. Nobody
can do everything, however, and nobody should.

The problem is the ultimate goal of most businesses is
growth, and success on that score is dependent on strategic players driving it
forward all the time. These key individuals should be creating new products,
developing services, scaling the business successfully …

Marketers have been put through their paces in the last few years,
eh? Ever since the personal computer ‘took off’, it’s been a fast changing
world. Just over a decade ago in September 2008, Google Chrome was launched and
the first mobile device on Android made its appearance; iPhone only having
appeared the year before. GDPR wasn’t even a four letter word on the horizon,
and Blackberries were purely for checking email. But since that time,
technology has exploded and digital marketing is unrecognisable. It’s been
quite a journey so far…

The internet is now a given

Let’s assume that the internet took off in 1994 when the
first mass-market browser, Netscape, was released. Since then, everything from
email, to search engines, to ecommerce has become the norm. But interestingly
it’s only in the last few years that content has become king. Before then, the
search engines catalogued sites, some forward-thinking businesses implemented
crude SEO techniques, and users searched with keywords and found all sorts of
information.

In the background, as all this was going on though, the pool
of big data was growing. Information was building, just waiting to be analysed
and dissected. But this wasn’t a collection of …

ePrivacy Regulation (ePR)… Are you nodding sagely, raising
your eyes to the ceiling, or feeling nonplussed? Is the follow up to the four
letter word that is GDPR even on your horizon? If you’re a digital marketer… it
needs to be.

What is ePrivacy Regulation (ePR)?

Put simply, ePR is the next bit of EU legislation covering
data law. Its focus – the hint is in the name – is the privacy of individuals with
specific respect to electronic communications. It was originally intended to ‘launch’
in tandem with GDPR in May last year, but in truth it’s far from ready and
quite a bit of discussion still needs to take place in dusty corridors before
it is.

Is it just GDPR in another name?

No, is the short answer; they’re more like siblings. They’re
both aiming to align data privacy laws across all EU countries. And both refer
to the protection of personal data of individuals within the EU. So if you do
business with someone in the EU, regardless of whether you’re actually in the
EU or not… they apply. And the system for fines and penalties are the same.

Digital marketing has seen phenomenal growth, and it’s not
going away. Society has shifted permanently to fully embracing the digital
world and only a long-term power cut is going to have an impact on that.
However, with that said, other channels still have influence. Where there’s
less activity it’s easier to be spotted. If you walk into a fancy restaurant
more than likely your eyes are hit with a million twinkles, glittery lights and
amazing décor. Walk into your accountant’s reception, though, and you might
just find yourself sitting in a plainly painted room with an eerie silence. See
where we’re going here? Print has not been replaced… marketers simply have to
work out how to re-place it in their plans.

Putting digital into perspective

The thing is, what works for digital also works against
digital. Targeted messages can appear in front eyes quickly and easily. But
because they can appear so quickly and easily, web users have subliminally
learned to ‘not see’ them. Print, on the other hand, is something one holds,
and this in itself draws a reader’s attention rather than switches it off. You
could say, with print things are just that bit less busy. And this …

With so many ways in which people celebrate Christmas across the globe, we thought it might be interesting to shed some light on the stories behind why we participate in some of the traditions that we do over the festive period. Have a look at these random but interesting facts, amaze your family and friends with your knowledge or just use them as tales to tell when Christmas dinner is finished……

Unless you work in printing or hospitality, Christmas can quite often appear to be a dead zone for B2B marketers. Time to take a well-earned rest. But actually, done in the right way, seasonal campaigns can work very well for B2B and should definitely be a part of a well-seasoned marketer’s armoury. It’s a question of weighing up the pros and cons.

Yes, there’s no reason why business marketing can’t tap into the season of good will, but your design does have to be spot on. Your images, banners, and messages need to be pitched in exactly the right way or you’ll hit a wall. And that’s because you are up against a lot of distraction. Red, green, gold, and silver sparkles will be flying everywhere; your designs do need to catch the eye, but they also need to be taken seriously.

What’s the best approach?

We’d say, when it comes to B2B Christmas marketing, shift the emphasis of your goals for the season. Let go of worrying about lead generation and instead see your communications as a means of building the strength of your brand. Connect with your audience in a fun but meaningful way by doing something nice …

Let’s face it, a witty industry-based take on Christmas is something that is likely to bring a smile to your face, get shown around and then forwarded on. It could be a cleverly themed joke, a thought provoking video, or a funny animation or game, it doesn’t matter as long as it’s designed well and aimed at you in the right way; because you’re engaged. And that’s not the only reason Christmas interactive games and cards are a great idea for the B2B marketer……

Any B2B marketer who’s worth their salt knows that their website is a key tool in their armoury. It’s more than ‘just’ an asset. It’s an advert, a library, a megaphone, a receptionist, a handshake, a knowledgeable smile, a map, a directory… you get the picture. So ensuring it continues to engage your market and your audience is critical.…

So… get this. Not only does LinkedIn have 500 million users (as of the beginning of 2018), but 50% of those are active every month. That’s quite a statistic; but there’s more. Out of those 250 million people, 40% use it daily. So what gives?…

So you have a website… a pretty good one. But driving people to the right pages at the right time is perplexing you. Your prospects are all at different points in the buyer’s journey; and it’s not as though you know them personally and can help them during a chat down the pub. So how can you take each contact by the hand and lead them on their way? A well-planned strategy in automated marketing… that’s how.…

The sales funnel is one thing. Traditionally important for the ‘numbers game’ but rather heavy handed. Many marketers dream, instead, of being able to make the most of every contact in their database, they just don’t know how. Perhaps that’s because it sounds like cloud cuckoo land to suggest that you really can generate more sales out of your existing leads with just a little TLC. The good news, though, is that you can… It simply takes a nurturing approach.…

Email marketing… the name itself infers a breadth of skills and knowledge many businesses lack in-house, let alone individuals. Technology meets the esoteric world of psychology. But it is a strategy that works very well, particularly with regard to B2B contact. Good businesses understand how important good supplier relationships are… and they want to stay connected and informed. Email marketing has power.…